Bill would give President emergency control of Internet in his dreams
West Virginia Senator John Davidson “Jay” Rockefeller IV — the Democratic great-grandson of oil mogul John D. Rockefeller — has been said to be working for months on a draft of S. 773, a bill whose stated goal is “to ensure the continued free flow… Continue Reading
Who types Obama’s tweets?
“Twitter is blocked on White House computers,” press secretary Robert Gibbs told C-SPAN on Friday. Mediaite editor Rachel Sklar asked White House deputy press secretary Bill Burton to clarify Gibb’s statement and also to explain a bit of who’s who behind the President’s Twitter feeds.
Yes,… Continue Reading
Twitter is blocked on White House computers
That’s an actual quote from White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs caught by LA Times writer Andrew Malcolm, who posted the C-SPAN video clip below. “For some reason, Twitter is blocked on White House computers, so … I have to say, I’m on camera enough… Continue Reading
Where to talk back to Obama’s town hall
President Obama posted a call for questions about health care last Saturday. Today at 1:15 pm Eastern (10:15 Pacific) he’ll answer them on video. Press secretary Robert Gibbs is already warming up the crowd with a Q&A session with reporters.
You have multiple options to watch:
The… Continue Reading
What will Obama’s CTO Aneesh Chopra actually do?
Back when Barack Obama was only a candidate for the Democrats’ presidential nomination, he generated lots of excitement by revealing plans to be the first president to appoint a chief technology officer. Since then, however, there’s been some confusion about what the job will actually… Continue Reading
Another Googler to help run Obama’s tech efforts
Andrew McLaughlin, Google’s head of global public policy, will be joining President Barack Obama’s administration as the deputy chief technology officer, according to a report in The New York Times.
This adds to the already numerous ties between Google and the Obama administration — chief executive… Continue Reading
White House looking for more open government ideas
In my coverage of yesterday’s launch of Data.gov, the Obama administration’s new central website for sharing government data with the public, it looks like I missed an important piece of the administration’s efforts to make government more open — the launch of opengov.ideascale.com, a site… Continue Reading
Far-reaching Climate Bill wins first of many battles
Today, the American Clean Energy and Security Act — the most expansive legislation aimed at curbing global warming ever introduced in Congress — won approval from the House Energy and Commerce Committee 33-to-25, with Democrats and Republicans splitting along party lines. The win closely follows… Continue Reading
Meet White House 2.0, same as White House 1.0 (but on Twitter!)
The White House blog today announced some new online initiatives that are part of President Barack Obama’s promise to “reform our government so that it is more efficient, more transparent, and more creative.” And what do these bold new plans for “White House 2.0″ (the… Continue Reading
Google’s Schmidt and Microsoft’s Mundie join Obama advisory council
President Barack Obama just brought leaders of two tech giants on-board as advisers to his administration: Google chief executive Eric Schmidt and Microsoft chief research and strategy officer Craig Mundie have both been appointed to the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.
Bringing on… Continue Reading
Visit Recovery.gov to learn how the government spends $787B
You may have heard that President Barack Obama signed the $787 billion economic recovery bill today. The recent House and Senate votes were divided almost entirely along party lines, but hey, it passed, and regardless of how you feel about the bill, you can track… Continue Reading
Obama appoints John Doerr to economic advisory board
Updated
President Barack Obama just named two Silicon Valley bigwigs to his new Economic Recovery Advisory Board — famed venture capitalist John Doerr of Keiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Charles Phillips, president of business software maker Oracle Corp.
There’s an impressive range of names on the… Continue Reading
Roundup: Obama’s environmental policy, Sun’s big loss, and more
Here’s the latest (mostly depressing) action:
President Obama reverses Bush policy on environment — Obama endorsed California’s strict limits on greenhouse gas emissions, and vowed that the federal government will follow suit. Auto manufacturers’ responses were “similar in their ambiguity and political correctness,” according to The New… Continue Reading
WhiteHouse.gov takes a page from Twitter’s playbook
One of the many cool things about President Barack Obama’s inauguration (and the resultant excitement on sites like social network Facebook and micro-blogging service Twitter) is the new WhiteHouse.gov web site, which was unveiled as Obama was sworn in. As an Obama fan, it’s exciting… Continue Reading
Download Obama from YouTube
This seems like a golden age for watching politicians on YouTube. President-elect Barack Obama is delivering weekly addresses on the video site, and both the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives just launched their own YouTube channels. This is all great news … unless, of… Continue Reading
Report: Obama picks Julius Genachowski for FCC chair
President-elect Barack Obama plans to nominate tech veteran Julius Genachowski to head the Federal Communications Commission, according to the Wall Street Journal, which cites “a source close to the transition team.”
This isn’t the first time Genachowski name has come up as the likely replacement for… Continue Reading
Internet providers scramble for slices of broadband pie
It looks like President-elect Barack Obama’s promise to improve the nation’s broadband Internet access has been embraced by both politicians and the telecommunications industry. As usual, however, things get tricky once we dig into the details. The Wall Street Journal reports that how “broadband” is… Continue Reading
Obama announces early budget priorities: infrastructure and cleantech
President-elect Barack Obama announced a two-year program intended to create more than 2.5 million jobs by 2011, in his second YouTube video (and radio) “Weekly Address” since getting elected. He was surprisingly specific in terms of the support he expects to provide to various cleantech… Continue Reading
Print sees rebirth (for a day): Obama boosts newspaper sales
Wow, can President-Elect Barack Obama save the struggling newspaper industry, too?
Okay, probably not, but it looks like Obama’s election has caused a surge in newspaper sales, at least in liberal metropolises areas like New York and San Francisco. The New York Times, for example, tells… Continue Reading
Roundup: Web data offers election insight, banks gets big bonuses and more
Here’s the latest action:
Web data offers new info on presidential election — It remains to be seen whether Barack Obama’s tremendous lead over John McCain in Facebook friends will lead to a similar victory on election day. Meanwhile, another study looks at which social networking sites… Continue Reading